Quote:.I wills say it again, our fiat money can be made worthless overnight with the stroke of a pen.

It's not that simple. Even assuming congress did it and the president signed it, it would then have to survive the multitude of legal challenges in the courts whiere it would almost certainly be over turned.

But let's say it did survive the courts. If everyone wants to ignore all the other reasons here's exactly why it won't happen which is because states would start issuing their own cash again. Maybe not every state would, but there absolutely would be quite a few that would which in itself is a threat to the Union.

Barring some unforeseen catastrophie man will walk on Mars before the USA is actually cashless. Whenever it does happen in the Star Wars style future it would have been a gradual process over many many generations and might even require more of a one world style unified currency/government.

Quote:It's not that simple. Even assuming congress did it and the president signed it, it would then have to survive the multitude of legal challenges in the courts whiere it would almost certainly be over turned...

If it happened today, I can imagine it would be challenged.

Fifty year from now? I am not so sure it would be challenged and if it were that it would be reversed.

Yes, the stroke of the pen is purely speculative, but at some point maintaining a cash supply for an insignificant minority will be more trouble than it is worth and they may see fit to eliminate it.

I will also state again that most of us will probably be long dead and gone when it happens. I do not see us being cashless any time soon, but I do see it happening eventually. Given the arc of technological progress it is inevitable.

Quote:Barring some unforeseen catastrophie man will walk on Mars before the USA is actually cashless.

Quote:. but at some point maintaining a cash supply for an insignificant minority will be more trouble than it is worth and they may see fit to eliminate it.

I honestly think you're looking st it the wrong way in this aspect. Credit is certainly the majority of transactions, but that said even with younger teens it's still an insignificant minority that never uses cash ever. It's cheaper as a consumer to use credit now with the rewards, but even those of us that try to use it for those reason still do use cash as do teens or have some emergency money for a cab home or something if you're robbed.

It's a bid mental block to get over that you could never use cash even if you barely use it aside from all the other world currency and legal issues.

I see this the same way as the whole is collecting dying talk. People have been saying we're gonna be cashless for decades the same way collecting has supposedly been on its last leg, yet both keep surviving.

Someone has already mentioned the more rural areas. I believe the overwhelming numbers of private sales from flea markets, garage sales, farmers' markets, and places where an actual business is not being set up by the sellers involved will keep cash going for a long time.

Bartering was done before cash was first instituted and although we could go back to it, I think state currencies would arise or something like the NORFED/Liberty Dollar would again become popular. People enjoy cold, hard, PM cash. Where I live, people were using these regularly - even while having credit cards. It just psychologically "feels" like real money when you are holding something with actual value in your hand. Plastic and fiat money don't "feel" the same.

The Feds, I believe, were scared by the growing use of private, solver currencies and so illegally went after (only) the largest one: NORFED. I say illegal b/c the Fed has been forced to return everything they took. However, they got their goal of scaring people away from NORFED by making threats of criminal charges for using them (also legal), owning them (also legal), and threats of confiscation (also illegal). In fact they eve told eBay they needed to stop carrying NORFED auctions (although new daily entries dropped from 6-8 new pages of items to 10 auctions, it never did stop).

I mention all that to say that I really do believe non-city dwellers still have a very real need for cash and likely will for some time to come. When I can buy fresh corn from a farmer's market that was picked that morning (and there is a real difference in taste even after being day old) vs. getting a bunch of cans at a store - or even "fresh" corn at a store, guess which one I will gladly buy (and for less money normally!)

I agree cities are moving rapidly to cash only, but one thing rural people have noted throughout our country;s history: city dwellers tend to forget the societal bubbles (not a negative connotation at all) they live in does not stretch beyond the city limits. Life out here (much less populated bubbles) is an entirely different culture that many city people just have no real grasp on.

The reality is, this cultural avenue of misunderstanding works both ways, which is why the terms "country hick" and "city slicker" exist. Both cultures are vital, and both must be entered into the equation.

Quote:On the other hand, that Mars thing is going to happen. Guaranteed.

ONLY b/c it is now in private hands where the political red tape cannot touch it.

I was a kid when man walked on the moon. Everyone "knew" it was inevitable we would be on Mars in the 80s or 90s (reference most sci-fi from the era). We "knew" we would vacation on lunar colonies as adults. Then a different flavor of politics kicked in.

- When I value " being right" more than what IS right, I am then right...a fool.- How much squash could a Sasquatch squash if a Sasquatch would squash squash?- Real men play Fizzbin.

Quote:...or something like the NORFED/Liberty Dollar would again become popular...

This reminds me of something I wanted to bring up earlier, regarding the inevitability of being cashless...

I wonder how similar our feelings about being cashless are to the feelings of those who were speculating our eventually having debased money. To them, fiat currency and debased coinage were probably as heretical as being cashless is to many of us.

The NORFED example is interesting because I can see how that solution makes these two paradigm shifts eerily similar. Hard money still has many fans today, so with that cash (or something analogous to it) might survive indefinitely (even if only underground) as society at large becomes cashless.

Quote:ONLY b/c it is now in private hands where the political red tape cannot touch it.

True, private hands will need to get it done because there is no longer a driving political motivation, that is the cold war and the space race it created. If we want to government to fund a manned trip to Mars, just tell your US rep that China has plans to send someone there. But absent that, getting to mars is now a commercial endeavour.

Quote:and more surprisingly to most people even large areas where cell phones wouldn't even work.

Very true. I enjoy these places immensely

I know some people might be thinking that Baseball's statement refers to somewhere out on the prairies, but there is much rural area even in PA where this is fact. A lot of Northern PA and the southern tier of NY state is this way.

Internet tech is behind by quite a bit in the area I am in (close to Gettysburg). There is a lot of population here overall, yet I am stuck with just one internet provider as an option. I have to pay as much monthly for 10mbps service as my friend in D.C. pays for his 100mbps service.

Quote:The NORFED example is interesting because I can see how that solution makes these two paradigm shifts eerily similar. Hard money still has many fans today, so with that cash (or something analogous to it) might survive indefinitely (even if only underground) as society at large becomes cashless.

I do not see anyone ever thinking a piece of silver or gold in hand is not valuable. History teaches otherwise. I personally don't have a problem with places that its more conducive to being cashless being that way. The only thing I don;t like is then every cent anyone spends can be potentially recorded as are the items purchased. Of course people do this online all the time anyway.

Quote:True, private hands will need to get it done because there is no longer a driving political motivation,

I agree the cold war did drive this, but from having been there, I can tell you the majority of people were all for keeping up the system b/c of the technological advances it was bringing in on us at a record pace. Our uniquely free way of life had just done the impossible by being planting an American flag on the moon (yet the plaque left says we did it for ALL mankind b/c that was/is America), showing that a free society could do the impossible. We all wanted to see how far we could go. Again, we all just knew Mars was soon to be as were Lunar colonies. We felt we had finally broken the bonds of the earth itself.

If politicians had been doing what they were elected to do, the spirit of the people could have been followed.

But I also put similar blame on the new business mindset being adopted at the time. The big name companies seemed to have decided they could make a lot more money by introducing the developmental steps to a product as the "latest" tech instead of just making money from selling the final product itself. In other words, milk the public for every cent you can at each level.

I held a 486 chip cannibalized from an obsolete, circuit board (industrial machine) used at Smith Meter Company in Erie, PA when the "latest technology/computers" being marketed to the masses were still 286 chip based! Ask anyone like jbuck and myself who had an Amiga in the 80s just how far behind the big name companies were slowing the pace of advancement back then. Unlike the Amiga, I still have yet to be on a modern platform that does not bog down slightly in some things when it is supposed to be multitasking.

- When I value " being right" more than what IS right, I am then right...a fool.- How much squash could a Sasquatch squash if a Sasquatch would squash squash?- Real men play Fizzbin.

One wonders to what extent the current level of development the cashless society has had on the current level of personal credit card debt, let alone all other forms of personal debt, such as bank loans, mortgages etc.

Quoting from some current stats on credit card debt in Australia:Australia has a population of 25 million people.Current personal credit card debt currently stands at $45 billion. That debt level works out to be around $1,800 for every man, woman and child in the Country. One in 6 of Australian credit card holders have a credit card debt that is so large that they have no hope of ever being able to completely discharge that debt.

If that debt was translated into American terms, the personal credit debt would currently stand not much short of $U.S. 1/2 trillion, which is inenxorably growing, like the U.S. National debt.

Scams currently cost Australians $1.4 billion annually.My reaction to this is to never use internet banking, except for the use of the Post Office and banks' professionally managed electronic security systems. I never use my 'phone or computer for electronic payment.

Needless to say, all of the pain is falling on those who can least afford to pay the debt down, let alone to completely discharge it.

That is one of the reasons why I point blank refuse to ever have a credit card. With cash budgeting, I have never been in debt, except for a mortgage, and that was paid off way back in 1990.

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